Scruffy - A Diversion Read online

  Scruffy recognized Felicity at once, whether from voice or smell or because he was a bit sharper than Captain Bailey was beside the point. His amber eyes lit up, his black lips were drawn back from his yellow teeth and he leaped up and down and coughed and barked and scolded her.

  The tears were now so close to Felicity’s eyes that the big Macaque looked almost beautiful.

  “Oh, Scruffy dear,” she cried, “how good it is to see someone.” And from force of habit she put her hand into her pocket to see what was there, and found a chocolate bon-bon wrapped in silver paper.

  She unwrapped it slowly, and as she did so Scruffy came forward. The memory tubes and transistors of his own computer system had this situation taped and Felicity labelled as The Girl Who Always Had Something.

  “Come, my darling,” crooned Felicity and held out the bonbon.

  Scruffy sidled over mostly on his behind and reached with his firm black leathery hands. With one he clutched Felicity’s wrist and the other took the praline. He smelled the sweet and, for a second, a look of blissful anticipation crossed his otherwise grumpy features. This was more like it. On the other hand there was no reason to exclude the amenities. He therefore pulled Felicity’s wrist towards him and bit her severely in the thumb, then skipped away eight paces clutching his comfit and leaping up and down coughing and railing at her. Felicity let out a scream of pain followed by four orthodox Naval curses and one that she made up herself on the spur of the moment.

  And at that instant she found herself possessed of a savage and unreasoning rage against Captain Timothy A. Bailey. It was as though Tim had bitten her. The blood spurted from two deep gashes, one on top, the other on the bottom of the fleshy part of her thumb, but no more freely than the hot tears of anger that came welling from her eyes. Everything that had happened, or had not happened, since her return combined to fuse into one petrol-soaked knot of fury. Scruffy’s bite had now set it alight and flaming.

  Unmindful of the gore dripping from her wound on to her uniform she ran to her car, climbed in, crashed the gears into place and went rocketing down the mountain, half-crying, half-muttering phrases to herself in which things and allusions uncomplimentary were coupled with the name of Timothy Bailey.

  She careered through the town taking corners on two wheels, frightening dogs and civilians, zoomed down Main Street, charged through the Southport Gates and up past the Rock Hotel, breaking all speed laws in her haste to reach her destination before the heat of the fire which had been kindled should diminish by so much as a single calorie. She wrenched the car off Engineer Road into Europa Road towards the point so that the tires squealed, hurtled onwards into the bare, tatty area of the barracks, and caught the sign indicating Catchment Road. Her glance peeled off the names over the doors outside the barracks until she glimpsed that of Captain Bailey. She stopped the car, which gave vent to an agonized cry of tortured brakes and metal, coupled with the growl and crunch of displaced gravel.

  The screen door was closed but the inner door to Captain Bailey’s quarters was open. There was a small lamp burning and the Captain was seated at his desk in his shirt-sleeves. Before he had time to do more than look up from the papers on which he had been working there were two loud, practically simultaneous bangs as Felicity slammed first her car door and then the screen door behind her.

  She roared up to the desk and the astonished Captain, thrust her thumb, still leaking her life’s blood, in front of his nose and cried, “Your damn bloody monkey bit me.”

  Tim arose, knocking over his chair, “Oh, my God,” he said, “Felicity!” Then he said, “But he’s not mine any more,” and with a note of despair and pathos that reached right to Felicity’s heart, “Felicity, I’m no longer O.I.C. Apes. I’m nothing at all.”

  “Tim, oh my dear, darling Tim,” Felicity wailed. “What have they done to you?” For she recognized something of a broken man. Also she was no longer angry with him, for over his shoulder, on his desk, was the framed photograph of herself, or at least of the person she seemed once to have been.

  A large bright-red drop of blood fell with an audible splash on to the company report on which Tim had been working and spread out blot-shaped.

  “Felicity!”

  “Tim, dear Tim!”

  They were so close now in one another’s arms that they no longer needed to shout, or even to speak, but could whisper their names and terms of endearment into one another’s ears.

  “Tim, why didn’t you meet me?”

  “I did.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was frightened, I ran away.”

  “Why?”

  “You were too beautiful! I couldn’t bear it. I was afraid! I’m afraid now.”

  They separated for a moment and looked at one another.

  “Don’t you know what has happened to you?” Tim asked. “Look.” He pointed to a mirror. “Can’t you see, it’s almost blinding?”

  It was enough to make any woman exult, but strangely Felicity felt more like crying at the moment. “Do you mean to say,” she said, indicating the photograph, “that you like her more than me? I did it all for you.”

  Young Captain Bailey looked from the fat girl in the picture to the goddess by his side and at that moment had no answer for her, so storm-tossed were his emotions.

  “I’ll cross my eyes,” Felicity wailed and proceeded to do so, “I’ll cut my hair and stuff pillows in my bosom until I can fatten up for you again. I’ll do anything you ask, Tim, if it will make you happier.”

  Afterwards Tim said that it was as though a light shining down from heaven had pierced him with the joyous and everlasting revelation that his adored and chubby girl was still there. She had changed her outer appearance and he supposed eventually he would get used to it and be able to regard her without the aid of dark glasses, but within she was still Felicity, funny, droll, dear, kindly, tender Felicity.

  He went to pieces then again over his love for her, the hurt she had suffered which he had inflicted, the wound that was bleeding and the resolving of the pain that he himself had experienced.

  They were both covered with her blood by this time and when he had bandaged her and they had tidied themselves and she had announced that having compromised him by practically assaulting him in his quarters they would have to be married at once, he told her of what had happened to him since she had left and of the events leading to his disgrace and sacking.

  “Darling,” he said, “I can’t let you. I’ve been dropped so many numbers I’ll be a Captain until I’m forty. I’ve been banished to these quarters. If the C.O. could have knocked a pip off my shoulder he would have done so. I can’t drag you down.”

  Felicity sat on the edge of the table. Her now long, fine-spun hair was gathered in a bun at the back of her head. Trojan Helen had never looked more beautiful. She said, “You love me, don’t you, Tim?”

  Tim replied, “Oh, my God.”

  “Well,” said Felicity firmly, “that’s where we start from.”

  The wartime marriage of Tim and Felicity was a quiet affair conducted in the chapel in the presence of the Admiral, Tim’s best man and a few friends, and Gunner Lovejoy slipping into the rear of the church at the last moment.

  Denied the support of his wife who was back in England, and faced with a determined Felicity, the Admiral had not had sufficient stamina to continue his objections, even though he was aware that in the interim his son-in-law had not made himself any more desirable. However, the young people had survived a long separation and since Felicity was insistent the Admiral put the best face he could upon the matter, and the modest celebration of the union took place.

  There was no leave granted for a honeymoon. When Tim applied for it his application was turned down. The dog-house was still operating as far as the Army was concerned, except now they were to occupy a kennel built for two, for the married quarters assigned to them were the shabbiest and most run-down located in Outer Siberia. This, it should be added, was not at
all the doing of the Brigadier, who was no longer even aware of the fact of Captain Bailey’s existence beyond his satisfactory performance of his duties with his guns. The General had other worries as has been noted. The vindictiveness was simply that continuation of the status quo. Captain Bailey had been declared beyond the pale and would be maintained there until someone higher up ordered him out of limbo.

  None of this affected Felicity whatsoever. She simply moved in with her husband. The honeymoon, a doubtful blessing, was not missed, for they discovered very quickly how genuinely lucky they had been to choose one another, as they now proceeded to fall violently and passionately in love in quite a different way than they had ever dreamed possible.

  At first Timothy was harrowed by the depressing bungalow in the tatty and unimproved neighbourhood down near Point Europa, but Felicity soon cured him of that. She was a comfortable girl, sensible and agreeable, with no false notions about being owed anything by life. As far as that went she felt overpaid, for she had acquired all for herself the one man who had touched her deeply and permanently.

  In her spare time she set about making their home as cheerful as possible, with plaster walls peeling and cracking from the dampness, bed sheets that were never quite dry, Government furniture that was ugly and insufficient and the garden patch where nothing would grow because they were allowed no water for such purposes. Undaunted, Felicity bought artificial flowers and set them out in the garden patch, where their colour cheered the entire neighbourhood, at least until the first rainstorm undid them. When Tim saw Felicity giggling at the wreckage he loved her more than ever and no longer worried about her.

  There, too, was enjoyed their first and practically last quarrel, the issue of which was unimportant, the main point being that they had no more than really warmed up to a tempestuous exchange of amenities and personalities when suddenly and simultaneously they recognized the absurdity of the proceedings, called it a draw and began to shout with laughter.

  Thus they were off to a more than auspicious start to a slightly less than humdrum life of a married Service couple when Gunner Lovejoy decided to change the formula of his usual drink at the Admiral Nelson and thereby altered the lives of a great number of people.

  1 1

  Mr. Ramirez Writes a Letter

  “ ’Alf me apes dead or dying from malnutrition and diseases resulting from privations due to same and no one to turn to. That’s what’s got me down. It’s enough to drive a man to drink!” And so saying Gunner John Lovejoy, to emphasize the last point, took a large swallow of the drink he had been driven to. In this instance a variation of his usual tipple was in some ways a fatal one. He was accustomed and conditioned to his own invented combination, Guinness laced with a dash of lime juice, but upon this occasion, and due no doubt to the anguish collected in his soul, he was substituting Malaga wine for the lime juice.

  The Gunner was holding forth in the Admiral Nelson before a mixed audience consisting of several of his Artillery pals, two sailors from a destroyer undergoing repairs at the Navy Yard, some civilians from the town, and Alfonso T. Ramirez.

  Ramirez was always eager and willing to stand treat, and if the Gunner had given any thought to the matter he would have felt certain that the incident of the stolen wig had been forgotten. In this, however, he would have been wrong. Ramirez was merely biding his time.

  “If they want apes let them have apes,” the Gunner said, “and if they don’t want them let them shoot the beggars and have done with it. But don’t let the creatures starve to death and die off piecemeal before me very eyes, that’s looked after them the past twenty years. It’s more’n flesh and blood can stand.”

  All the listeners made sympathetic noises and shuffled their feet and hoped for more, for this was fine talk to be listening to while drinking, containing as it did elements of news, story, sentiment and emotion.

  The Gunner himself lifted up his dark glass and drank deeply. The acids of the Malaga joined hands with the esters of Lord Iveagh’s Guinness and mounting airily to his head they further unloosed his tongue to permit him to pour forth details of the tragedy that was being enacted before his eyes.

  “ ’Ow would you like to see your personal friends carried off one after the other? Seems like every time I go up there these days I’m trippin’ over the corpse of one of me pals. You’ve all ’eard tell, ’aven’t you, how them apes are supposed to disappear when they die and not a flippin’ sign of ’em? Well, that’s a lot of malarky too. Last week it was Tess rolled up in a ball with her stummick all swole out like she’s swallered a balloon. This morning it was Mona. I showed ’em to a medic friend of mine. ‘Colic,’ he says, ‘from eating unripe fruit. I’ve seen babies like that, only babies can get rid of it; monkeys can’t.’ Like me own daughters they were, Mona and Tess. Brought ’em up practically by hand as you might say, when their mothers was killed. Fed ’em with a medicine dropper and then out of a bottle. Cried like a baby I did when I met Captain Tim in town today and told him. That’s Captain Bailey who used to be O.I.C. Apes, and a proper one too. I thought ’e was about to bawl same as me. He was there when they was born. Very fond ’e was of their mothers and them too. It was a black day for the hapes when Captain Bailey was sacked and that’s a fact, and they put in that yellow belly as doesn’t dare show the flag or stick up for the poor brutes for fear of blotting ’is copybook.”

  “I buy another drink,” said Alfonso T. Ramirez. “Another drink all round.” All of the men at the bar stirred approvingly.

  “That’s big-hearted of you, chum,” conceded the Gunner, “I could do with another.” The barman set them up. Ramirez paid.

  The Gunner took a long, deep, draught. “And Scruffy on the rampage and doing in old Arthur. He was bound to kill him sooner or later, they two never getting on. But it seemed like he knowed we couldn’t afford to lose no hapes and done it a-purpose. And me not able to use the balloons on him to stop it.”

  One of the sailors asked the question that Ramirez was popping to put in. “Balloons? Did I ’ear yer say balloons?”

  “You did that,” replied the Gunner, and fishing into his pocket brought out a small red rubber toy balloon, the stem of which he set to his lips. Taking a deep breath he began to blow. The balloon filling with the mixed fumes of Malaga and Guinness swelled out to enormous size, distending beyond its capacity, and blew up with an appalling bang.

  “There you are,” the Gunner said, “that’s ’ow it’s done. It’s the only way to control old Scruff. Terrifies him. Like a lamb ’e is when the balloon goes up. But what good is it now, I ask? When I come upon Scruff and Arthur he’d got his tusks in Arthur’s throat and his ’ead nearly tore off—”

  Ramirez asked, “Why you not blow?”

  The Gunner regarded him with contempt, “Asked like a hamateur,” he said. “What, and kill ’em both? Ain’t I just told you the hapes are nervous wrecks from all the shooting? That’s what got into old Scruff there, all the banging and blasting. He couldn’t stand no noise. If I gave ’em a balloon like as not he could have died on me ’ands, and then where would we have been?” He looked around for an answer but collected no more than some sympathetic shakes of the head until Ramirez said, “You have a difficult job, Gunner. I buy another drink.”

  The Gunner regarded Ramirez now with benevolence. “Mannie,” he said, “you’ve hit upon me needs. So with Arthur dying of ’aving no ’ead that puts the Queen’s Gate pack down below ’arf.”

  Ramirez, in the act of paying for his investment, turned and asked, “Did you say half, Gunner?”

  “You count ’em,” replied the Gunner. “There used to be twenty-six in the Queen’s Gate pack. Who’s left now? There’s old Scruff, Pat and Tony, Ronnie and Millie, Kathleen, Sally, Judy and three hapelets that don’t look like they’d last more’n a couple of days. And it’s the same with the Middle Hill bunch. They get the worst of it when there’s shooting; they can’t stand noise and they just quietly gets a nervous breakdown and dies.” T
he Gunner now looked around at his once more enthralled audience and queried, “And what am I to do? Knock on the brass’s door and say, ‘Brigadier, your bleeding hapes are dying off and unless you call off that babu you’ve put in as O.I.C. Apes there won’t be none left?’ Not me, chums. I got seven days and another seven from that half-wit Lieutenant for laying me hands on a bit of extra rations for me friends, a couple of lettuces and some mouldy carrots and bread. And who put ’im in there with instructions to do same? The Brigadier.”

  And the Gunner, now well lubricated, had a further question to ask of his audience. “What’s to happen if the whole blooming lot dies out? What’s the Rock going to be like without apes? What ’appens to me job? And what about where it tells what’s to become of us British when there’s no more apes here? Kicked off the Rock, that’s what the Spanish say. Who am I to say that it can’t happen? Or you, or you?”

  Those singled out by this direct question shook their heads in lugubrious assent.

  “If the brass ain’t thinking about it, I am,” asserted the Gunner. “A legend they calls it, but what’s the use of having a legend if yer don’t live by it? I’ve given me life to raising and looking after their ruddy apes and there they all are sending it down the drain.” The Gunner’s mind suddenly took them back to the morning’s tragedy. “Like a daughter she was to me, was Mona. There she was curled up in a thorn tree, her belly blown up like someone took a bicycle pump to her. Her little face looked that natural, I cried like a baby.” The tears once more rolled down the seams and furrows of the Gunner’s leathery face.